Join us for a FREE Ocean Lecture & Educator’s Night

Want to spice up your teaching of MARE’s “It Takes All Kinds”?
Interested in learning more about current New Jersey fisheries research to teach your students?

Join us for an exciting evening ocean science lecture and a curriculum session.

Dr. Olaf Jensen

Dr. Olaf Jensen, Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University, will share his current research about the status of global fisheries, local New Jersey fisheries, and current fishery science, in an educator’s only evening lecture. Following the lecture, we will share fish and fishery related lesson plans and discuss how to bring these topics into your classrooms/clubs.

The Jensen lab studies fisheries and aquatic ecosystems – including marine, estuarine, and freshwater environments. Their research ranges from field studies of endangered salmonids in Mongolia to meta-analysis of stock assessment data to better understand fish population dynamics. If you’re interested in learning more about what they do visit the Research page on the lab website.

** Please bring an example of a prop, educational material, or lesson plan that you use to teach your students about fish and fisheries. **

Registration-
Register by Friday, January 13, 2012 (click here to register).
If you are attending in person you will receive FREE materials, a light super, and a certificate of professional development hours.
However, if you are unable to attend in person we will be broadcasting the event over the internet. We ask that you register as well if you plan on watching the broadcast so we may ensure that it works well for you.Background Materials & Lesson Plans-
Visit the Teacher Opportunities page on the MARE website to access background materials and lesson plans related to the event.

Parking-
Upon registration for the event, you will receive an email with the necessary parking pass to download, print, and display on your dashboard. Parking is available across from the Institute of Marine & Coastal Sciences (IMCS) building.

I just wanted to share how great the lecture was last night. There were three of us from Eisenhower School last night (Scott Pachuta, Carol Munn and myself) and we left feeling completely re-energized and motivated to implement what we learned.

First thing this morning was a reassurance of that feeling when Carol popped in my room before class. We began bouncing ideas of implementing the lesson “Black Sea Bass Encounter” and the cross-curricular opportunities. It was followed up with Mike (Griffin) and I meeting up in our Ocean Science room, where I filled him in on Dr. Jensen’s lecture and the potential collaboration.

The ever-pressing issue is continuing that “buzz” or motivation. How do we do this? What needs to be put in place? How do we sustain M.A.R.E.? I think last nights “experimental” lecture was a wonderful starting point. It makes sense to teach M.A.R.E. to educators the same way we would teach our students… small chunks of information. I have this moto I use in my Art class, “A little bit of information, a lot of application”.

To be able to process small amounts of information at a given time takes a lot of the intimidation our of teaching or implementing M.A.R.E. Last night was the perfect example. We talked about fisheries and the lesson was relevant to what we just learned, but that’s as far as it went, which allowed us to process and make sense of the information. We always have to remember that an abundance of our M.A.R.E. educators are not scientists and the language alone can be consuming and overwhelming.

I would like to see the M.A.R.E. educator nights happen bi-monthly. It would give us a month in between lectures to implement what we learned/ talked about and it would give us time to come back with “real” feedback.

I’m not sure if this is the place for what I just wrote, but I figured someone would read it. Thanks again for the opportunity.